


Mutually assured destruction: or how I learned to stop worrying and love the pain

by closetcellist



Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Altered Mental States, Hypnotism, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships, fucking while high, it's consensual just a bad idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:28:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28755126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closetcellist/pseuds/closetcellist
Summary: In Hell, sinners find comfort where they can, laced with doubt and dependent on leaving things unsaid. Snippets of Vox and Val’s tumultuous relationship.
Relationships: Valentino/Vox (Hazbin Hotel)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 50





	Mutually assured destruction: or how I learned to stop worrying and love the pain

They were, as they seemed to always be, at Val’s penthouse atop Porn Studios—it was almost impossible to pry the man out of his stronghold, so Vox had to wait on him there. Not that it was a surprise anymore. Practically nothing was.

Still, Vox just made himself comfortable in his favorite plush armchair, waiting for Val to stop primping and pay attention to him. It didn’t take quite as long today—the quieter he was, the sooner Val would crack and demand his focus. He was done up from something today, maybe entertaining. Vox could check but he could while away some time guessing first. Based on the robe he was wearing, Val had probably married a rich man at breakfast and killed him at dinner today. Vox chuckled to himself, and that snapped Val’s attention to him, with a put upon pout.

“What’s so funny?” Valentino asked, sauntering over, slipping his shades off on the way. He was posing at bit, in a good mood, Vox guessed, based on the kind of show he was putting on.

“Fashion,” Vox said, watching as Val unconsciously found his light and best angles. He couldn’t complain; the show was for him, after all, and it was a very pretty one.

“Mine or yours?” Val asked with a small smirk. He strolled slowly around Vox in his chair, one of his hands trailing around the back of it, while another snatched off Vox’s hat and tossed it away.

“In general,” Vox said, turning to keep Val in sight. He still didn’t like it when Valentino slipped into his blind spot, even if it wasn’t always blind.

“Put my favorite show on for me, baby,” Val purred as he finished circling, swinging a leg over Vox’s thighs to straddle him, his lower arms draping themselves over Vox’s shoulders while he stroked a finger down the side of Vox’s screen, causing the faintest of liquid crystal ripples in the pixels. “We’ll take it slow tonight.”   
  
Vox sighed, his display shaping into a frown. “You know, some guys might take it the wrong way if their boyfriend kept insisting on getting high before fucking them.”

Val narrowed his eyes, his displeasure clearer than ever without his heart-shaped shades. “You don’t wanna ever get fucked again, you just gotta say so, Voxy,” he said sharply, pulling away with a sneer and stalking over to his sideboard, two hands busying themselves with pouring a drink while the other two fussed at and adjusted his robe. “It’s no skin off my dick.”

Vox narrowed his eyes. “What’s up your ass today?” he asked.

“Definitely not you,” Valentino said, lifting a glass of something thick and amber, swallowing it in a few gulps and pouring another.

****

Vox was riding high; he’d killed two wannabes trying to step to his territory and he was filled with the electric delight of slaughter and power. Valentino had told him something about a show, that he was putting on some sort of party or something at Club Hell 666. Vox flitted briefly through the security cameras in the club to find Valentino in a decked-out dressing room and strolled in with a grin, intending to surprise his boyfriend.

Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to surprise and Overlord. Perhaps he should have known that. But in his excitement, Vox just slipped into the room and grabbed Valentino, pulling him down for a kiss.

“Get off me! You’re smudging my makeup! You want me to go out there in front of all these people with my makeup all smudged? You clumsy oaf!” 

Valentino swung at him, all elbows and fists, and one of those collided with the corner of Vox’s screen. A sharp  _ crack _ rang out in the small space. Vox staggered back, a few pieces of plastic substrate falling from his display to the ground as he clutched at it, looking up at Val in confusion.

The uncracked part of the display glitched and flickered, spiderwebs of black creeping out from the snapped and broken bits of plastic as the liquid crystals bled out and died. Vox’s remaining eye blinked, flickered out of existence, returned and blinked again, his voice just as glitching when he spoke. “Va--a _ al _ ? I-- I’m s̶͎̐-so̶̻̚r̷̪̈́r̸͚͝y̶͉̓ V̵̯̇̀ä̶͙́̄-al̵̮̿” He was more surprised than anything else—it hurt like a bitch of course, but it wasn’t the first time his screen had been broken. Just the first time it had been broken by Valentino. It always threw his processors for a loop, feedback in his brain disorienting him, throwing his focus out of whack, bouncing his consciousness momentarily to other eyes, other lenses, depersonalizing the scene.

When he settled back in his body, blinking out of one eye that occasionally fuzzed over with momentary static, Valentino had changed again, his expression contrite.

“Sorry, baby, come here. Shh shh shh, I didn’t mean it. You know how I get before a big show. You know how I get. You’ve gotta be more careful, baby,” Val murmured, his voice now soft and gentle, as gentle as his hands when he carefully, curiously, brushed them over the jagged cracks in Vox’s screen. Sour to sweet, like the flip of a light switch.

Vox flinched away from the touch, not from fear but discomfort, pushing Valentino’s hand away from his face. “No I don’t,” he got out with just a hint of static now, connectors already fusing back together. Except he did; he did know how Valentino got, or could get, sometimes. He had seen it plenty of times, over and over. He’d just assumed he was different.

Valentino watched him, and even through remaining static, Vox saw how careful the other Overlord’s expression was now. “I’ve got to go on stage now, baby,” Valentino murmured, contrite and careful, careful, careful. “Everybody’s waiting for me. You stay here and rest. I’ll make it up to you after, I promise.”

****

“ _ Whatever ya say, Mista Valentino _ ,” Vox said, playing Angel Dust’s voice from his speakers.

Val froze, the second drink halfway to his lips. He turned a scowl on Vox. “You’re buggin’ my limo now?”

“You have to actually  _ try _ if you want to hide anything from me,” Vox said, shrugging and shifting, draping one arm with forced casualness across the back of his chair. “You should know that by now. Better than anyone.”

“So what then?” Val asked, finishing his drink and looking long and hard at the heavy tumblr before setting it back on the sideboard with more force necessary. “You want to pretend you’re jealous of my bottom bitch? What’s your fuckin’ problem today?”

“Maybe I’m just getting a little tired of this bitch-and-a-half act of yours,” Vox said, exasperated static lining his words. “Satan’s tits, I’ve never met anyone higher maintenance than you.”

A sour smile curled across Valentino’s face. “Oh, but you love it, baby. You know you do, with all your puzzles and shit. I make it too easy for you and you’ll get bored, maybe forget how much you need me.”

Valentino watched him for a moment, the two of them frozen in a familiar tableau of tension, desire, need, anger, and regret. He shifted his stance, a subtle tilt of the head, the shoulders, the hips, and the air between them changed again. He shrugged out of his robe in one smooth motion, his lower hands going straight to the waistband of his panties, tugging at them teasingly as he sauntered back over to his partner.

“You think you’ve seen everything, with all those eyes of yours,” Valentino purred, bending at the waist so his face was inches away from Vox’s screen, forearms draped over Vox’s shoulders again. “All those screens, all those little snippets of Hell playing for you over and over. Over and over and over and over and over again,” he murmured, tapping his fingers against the back of Vox’s set in time with his words like a metronome. “Like water torture, hm? You need a distraction. You  _ need _ me. Pretend all you like, but you can’t fool me. I  _ know _ you.”

Valentino stood, slipping out of his panties and turning to saunter over to the bed, working the laces of his corset loose as he went. Vox was halfway out of his chair before he even realized he was moving, but he didn’t stop to think about that—it wasn’t worth it, even if the knowing smirk Valentino cast over his shoulder pierced through him like an Exterminator’s spear.

Valentino stopped before the bed, grabbing Vox by the lapels and stripping him in seconds, before pushing him backward onto the bed and climbing on to straddle him. “Now, you  _ will _ play daddy’s favorite channel, won’t you baby?” Valentino said, with a little pout, running two sets of fingers teasingly over Vox’s chest.

Vox sighed again, but it was a foregone conclusion. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, before his display flickered, his face disappearing, replaced instead by a bright static, a hypnotic-snow light show. He felt Valentino’s full-body shudder as every muscle in his body seemed to relax at once.

****

“You blew me off again,” Vox snarled, as he stormed into Valentino’s penthouse, fed up and furious.

“Sorry, baby, I forgot,” Valentino said, not looking up from his phone, nor sounding at all repentant.

“Like fuck you did,” Vox snapped. “What was this time for, huh? Did I forget to buy you something you never told me you wanted? Did I not gush over your latest pic on Voxtagram enough? What made-up slight have you pulled out of your ass to punish me for?”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Valentino said, looking over the top of his glasses at Vox. “You usually do. Eventually.”

Vox’s anger simmered, then boiled over. He was tired, bone tired of being jerked around like a dog on a leash.

“ _ Sorry, Val, _ ” Angel Dust whispered through Vox’s speakers. Then Summer, or Dia, or both of them, “ _ Mister Valentino, I’m sorry.”  _ Others, one at a time first, then speeding up, starting to run together, “ _ Sorry Val. Val I”m sorry. I’ll do better next time, Val, I promise. Mister Valentino, I didn’t mean it, I’ll fix it, I’m sorry _ —”

The audio snippets blurred and clashed together, stuttering and stammering but still clear enough in their message, “ _ Val _ — _ I’m sor-sorry Val _ — _ Mister Valentino, please _ — _ I-I’m sorry- sorry _ — _ Val- so _ — _ sorry Val. _ ” The clamor of voices faded as Vox played a last recorded clip, of his own voice: “ _ I’m s̶͎̐-so̶̻̚r̷̪̈́r̸͚͝y̶͉̓ V̵̯̇̀ä̶͙́̄-al̵̮̿ _ ”

“Is that what you wanted to hear?” Vox asked, cold and spiteful. “I’ve said it once. I won’t say it again.”

“Stop that,” Val hissed, glaring through his shades. “You have no idea—”

“I have every idea,” Vox said, cutting him off dismissively. “I’m tired of this shit from you.”

“From me?” Val raged. “After everything I put up with from you—”

Vox cut him off with a laugh like an exploding breaker box. “I don’t know why I even fucking  _ bother _ with you, you piece of shit.”

“What did you say to me, you little bitch?” Valentino snarled, raising a hand to strike at Vox, aiming, as always, for his delicate screen.

But Vox was ready, had expected it, and caught Valentino’s wrist before it hit. He didn’t have a chance to raise any of his other hands against him before Vox began to play another selection. HIs screen showed flashes of images, a jumble of high definition and fuzzy, back-alley security footage, of Val—moments intimate, vulnerable, humiliating, disarming.

Scratchy and hissing, under the visuals Vox rolled an old, old recording, poor quality, but it’s very existence was enough to freeze Valentino in his place, his face blanching to a sickly gray. The sounds of wracking sobs filled the room, fuzzed over with heavy, grainy audio noise. “ _I’m sorry,_ ” the recorded Valentino hiccupped. “ _Please, mommy, I’ll be good. I won’t do it again, please—_ ” the audio warped and dissolved into static, but Valentino stayed frozen.

“Where—” Valentino whispered, swallowed, whispered again. “How—How did you—”

“Everybody likes to play with new technology,” Vox said, letting go of Valentino’s wrist like it was something foul, his display switching back to his face, expression hard and unimpressed. “Wax cylinders were new once too. Didn’t know she recorded you? I’m not surprised. It was tough to track down, but I found it. There’s more. Do you want to hear it?”

“No,” Valentino said, bloodlessly. “Don’t. Vox—”

“Shut up,” Vox snapped, a wave of static passing over his display. “Just—shut up.”

****

Valentino slid onto his cock like he was meant to be there, grinding his hips in a slow circle as he let out a sigh that might have been his soul leaving his body, if he had a soul. If he was a soul. Vox watched the scene from above, awareness jumping from camera to camera to take in the scene. He couldn’t see well through his main display when he was broadcasting this station, the optics too bright and difficult, but everything felt more distant when he watched from afar. Still, the view was excellent, he thought, as he ran this mechanical eye, then that, over Valentino’s pliable, sinuous body from every angle he could reach.

He looked so...blissful, like that. Vox supposed it was the hypnosis, or high or whatever it was that he got from the bright, staticy lights. Valentino had tried to explain it to him once, and it had sounded a bit like weed, a bit like ecstasy, a bit like being overwhelmed with juice from a socket. Nice though, he’d said. Relaxing. He could see that in him, now, even as Valentino worked his cock like the professional he was.

With a gasp, Vox was pulled back into his body by something clever Valentino had done, and the full force of sensual pleasure Val had wound up in him while he’d been voyeuristically hopping around the room hit him all at once. He moaned loudly, the end of it breaking up into an autotuned whine.

Valentino chuckled languidly, stroking himself as he moved a little faster. “There you are, baby,” he murmured, voice rich and full, his eyes slitted with bliss, though he kept his gaze on Vox’s bright screen, unwilling or unable to look away and floating. “You stay here with me. Let daddy take care of you.”

Vox shuddered under him, forced simply to feel as Valentino’s talented hands and equally talented body took him apart and, easily, too, too easily, wrung him dry as he was thrown over the edge, cumming with a shout of feedback. Valentino followed a moment later, and Vox felt, distantly, the hot splash of his seed over his stomach.

He turned his screen off then, for a moment, bathing the room in darkness before he brought his face back online. He nudged at Valentino’s hip until the other man dismounted, drawing a final groan from Vox before they curled together, unthinking, absent, needy.

They dug their fingers into each other’s softest parts, savoring the sweetness of bruised and rotting fruit.


End file.
